Emily Woods, AAP
After Zoran Pandilovski strangled his estranged wife to death in their Mill Park home, he moved her body to the basement and hid it under the stairs.
The 48-year-old used her mobile phone to take two photographs of her before fleeing and crashing his car.
When Elaine Pandilovski, 44, failed to show up for work at a Melbourne school, friends and family searched the home fearing the worst.
They frantically looked for Elaine three times, before police confirmed the family’s fears and found her body in a basement storage room later that evening.
Pandilovski claims he moved her lifeless body so that his son, then aged 12, would not arrive home to find her dead.
Elaine’s family stared down and yelled at Pandilovski, as he faced a pre-sentence hearing on Friday after pleading guilty to his wife’s murder.
Her mother, brother, niece and best friend spoke of their heartbreak and the impact her death has had on the couple’s son, who has autism.
“A mother isn’t supposed to bury a child, a grandmother isn’t supposed to be raising a grandson,” Elaine’s mother Kathy Dafopoulos told Victoria’s Supreme Court in a statement.
“You are evil and I hate what you’ve done to all of us, especially [her son].”
Pandilovski had a history of domestic violence towards his wife of 18 years, the woman he described as his childhood sweetheart.
The couple met in high school and married in 2002 before welcoming their son six years later.
In the year before the killing, Elaine sought court orders to stop Pandilovski from coming to their Mill Park home.
After those orders lapsed, the couple tried to be civil and Pandilovski would visit the family home for lunches and dinner to see their son.
He believed they were going to reconcile but Elaine told her mother she had no intention to get back together.
On July 14, 2020, the couple’s son was sleeping over at his grandmother’s house when Pandilovski visited to pick up the boy’s broken iPad.
He was seen on CCTV walking into the home at 7.45am and left less than two hours later.
Prosecutor Neill Hutton said Pandilovski’s murder was slow and deliberate, and the couple had struggled in the lounge room before he strangled her.
After hiding her body, he drove down Western Ring Road and collided with another car, injuring two people.
Police arrested him after the crash, finding Elaine’s wallet and phone on him.
Pandilovski’s barrister David Hallowes SC said the murder was not premeditated or planned but at some point he lost control and committed “the despicable crime”.
He asked for Pandilovski to be handed less than the standard 25-year prison sentence, as he was remorseful and had been a model prisoner by mentoring other inmates.
Pandilovski, who cried from a court dock and kept his head down for the hearing, will be sentenced on August 11.
Elaine’s family stood and peered over the balcony of the court’s public gallery as he was escorted out of the room.
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